U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday announced that their nations, the world’s top two carbon emitters, will sign the Paris climate change agreement on April 22, the day it opens for signature. Meeting in Washington ahead of the fourth Nuclear Security Summit, the two leaders issued a joint presidential statement signaling their commitment to “take their respective domestic steps in order to join the Agreement as early as possible this year.”
The Paris Agreement, adopted in December at the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, is the world’s first universal climate change agreement, soliciting contributions from developed and developing nations alike. As the world’s two largest emitters of carbon, the U.S. and China played a central role in drafting the agreement, which lays out a legal framework under which nations will work to meet voluntary nationally determined climate action goals.
The U.S. has pledged to reduce emissions by 26-28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. China has pledged to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by 60-65 percent from 2005 levels by 2030, peak carbon emissions around 2030 or earlier, and increase the share of non-fossil-fueled power generation in the country to approximately 20 percent by 2030. The nation’s pledges to the UNFCC mirror pledges made in a November 2014 joint presidential announcement.
The Paris Agreement will open formally for signature during a meeting of the United Nations in New York. The agreement takes effect when at least 55 of the 197 member states to the UNFCCC, representing at least 55 percent of total global greenhouse gas emissions, have signed it. The U.S. and China together account for 38 percent of global emissions.
To that end, the presidents, in announcing their intentions to sign the agreement “encourage other Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to do the same, with a view to bringing the Paris Agreement into force as early as possible. The Presidents further express their commitment to work together and with others to promote the full implementation of the Paris Agreement to win the fight against the climate threat,” according to the statement.
Response from the environmental movement was immediate and positive. “This demonstrates continued momentum from Paris and an ongoing commitment by the United States and China to collaborate and drive climate action forward on the global stage,” David Waskow, international climate director of the World Resources Institute, said in a release. “This joint statement cements the role that climate plays in the US-China relationship. It shows the confidence that both countries have in each other’s ability to deliver on their climate commitments.”
